A. DuPont’s Story: He was in a boy band

You are a 14 year old girl, with posters of a boy band on your wall. The boy band didn’t get quite as big as N*Sync and Backstreet Boys in the United States, but you were able to see them play live at the State Fair once, and your parents imported their albums for you as Christmas gifts. You knew all the lyrics to all their songs. You thought the boy with shaggy brown hair was cute but all your friends loved the lead singer with his Justin Timberlake-like blonde curls and that voice! We’ll call him J.

Picture this: spending the night at your friend, [S*]’s house only to find out that she has been chatting with J’s best friend, [C*], and Oh my god, they are going to meet us at the mall and we are going to go to the movies! Your friend [S] loves J and cannot believe she is about to hang out with him tonight. She spends hours getting ready because she knows as soon as he sees her it will be love at first sight. She tells you how nice [C] is and that you’ll “really like him.”

You get to the mall and, Oh my god there he is. He introduces himself, and to your friend’s dismay, J is paying attention to you. He pays for your movie ticket. He sits by you in the movie. He puts his arm around you in the movie. He holds your hand in the movie. He kisses you in the movie. You aren’t sure if you like J but everyone else seems to like him and you have his picture hanging on your wall and you’re flattered and confused and you go with it.
J and [C] invite you out. You bring J into your house so your parents can understand that, This is the real deal. This is the guy on the posters in my room! You bought me his albums for Christmas! They allow you to go.

He takes you and some friends into the city. You’re only 14 but he gets you into a 21+ club. He finds someone to get you a drink at the club in the city. He kisses you in front of all of your friends at the club in the city. On the way home, he sits with you in the back seat of the car you are riding in, he puts your hand in his pants and says, But, I brought you into the city.

Whenever he is home from Orlando, he calls you. Your friend [S] thinks “he’s a dick” and never wants to come around when he and [C] invite you guys over. You have a sneaking suspicion she is jealous, and the shallow-14 year old- that you are feels a bit cool about that because usually the boys like [S]. [C] eventually develops a crush for your friend [L*] anyway so J stops asking you to bring [S] along anyway.

One day, they invite you and [L] over to play paint-ball. After some time, J and his friends decide to charge you and your friend, pelting your bodies with the small paint filled bullets. You pretend that you are not bothered by it, but it hurts. You are angry and confused. They leave bruises. Luckily, [L] has to work so you cannot stay too much longer after that. But as you are getting ready to leave, J insists you stay and that he can give you a ride home later. You don’t want to stay, but he closes the door and picks you up, planting a kiss square on your lips, “You can’t go. I’ll miss you too much. I have to go back to Orlando in two days,” he says, so you stay.

After a little bit of time has passed, his friends pin you down as they lift up your shirt, lift up your bra. They draw a “smiley” face on your breasts and stomach. Your nipples are circled— the eyes, your bellybutton— the nose. And just above your pubic hair—the smile. You wiggle and scream, but they are bigger and stronger than you, not to mention they outnumber you five to one. You cry and they laugh. You feel both embarrassed and ashamed.

J repulses you. You insist that he takes you home. He tells you that he can’t just yet and that he wants to introduce you to one of his greatest friends. He wipes away your tears, tells you that you’re beautiful and that they were just playing around, that you, “need to relax and stop being so serious all the time.”

He takes you back to his home, where his friend is house sitting for his mother. There’s a party going on. “They are in the industry” he tells you and you feel so stupid, so young and out of place, He’s famous, you think to yourself, why does he want me here? He gives you a tour of his house. When you get upstairs, he wants to show you a picture of him and another famous celebrity that he knows will impress you, “It’s up in my room, let me show you,” he says. As you walk in, he shuts and locks the door, he pins you between himself and the bed. He starts kissing you, you freeze. He says your name slowly, quietly. He reminds you of who he is, how you know that your friends would do anything to switch places with you, and he repeatedly asks, “What’s wrong with you? How can you not like this?”

He takes off your clothes. You whisper in your small 14 year old voice, Please, no. I’m a virgin, please. No. He laughs, “I knew you were a virgin! This will be perfect, I promise.” He removes his clothes. His body is tan, toned, it is the first time you’ve ever seen a young man naked. If you weren’t so afraid, you’d almost find the physique beautiful, but you are scared out of your mind and this is not what you want.

He crawls on top of you, rubbing his body against yours. He comments that you’re dryer than the Sahara Desert but that he can take care of that as his tongue snakes between your legs, he spits and licks and your stomach turns, you feel disgusting. You keep trying to wiggle backwards, to free yourself, but he’s too strong. “Much better he says,” crawling back on top of you. He uses one hand to hold your wrists above your head. He keeps pushing himself between your legs and it hurts. You are too small down there. You’re hurting me, please stop. He doesn’t give up for a few minutes, but at some point he laughs, “You’re too damn tight.” He shoves his fingers up there for good measure and finally gets off of you.

You get dressed. You glance at yourself in the mirror. Your hair is dishevelled, mascara streaked across your cheeks, and he brings you downstairs like that. He doesn’t care. Someone comments, “What were you two doing up there?” And he jokes that his “dick was too big for her little cunt,” and they all laugh. You sit there humiliated, and ask when he’s going to take you home. He says he can’t drive you home any more, but that he made sure [C] called [L] and that she’s coming to get you as soon as she’s off work.

Finally she arrives and she can tell something is wrong, she doesn’t insist on staying, and brings you to her car. You never talk about what happened, you just cry. She hugs you. You don’t answer his calls anymore.

A few months pass and you get a boyfriend. He is wonderful. You tell him a little bit about J but mostly that he’s a “wannabe” and a “dick.” You never say that he raped you. One night you are hanging out at his house with a few friends and J calls you. Your boyfriend tells you to answer it, that he wants to meet this “wannabe.” You invite him over and he has sex with your friend on the couch in the living room. He lifts up his shirt to ask if the scratches are bleeding, revealing the red streaks along his backside.

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